


Tonight, on Christmas Eve

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Law & Order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some traditions are hard to let go of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tonight, on Christmas Eve

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rowan F.

 

 

Nine-fifteen on Christmas Eve. He should have been at home, sitting on the couch, watching the twins hover around the tree, trying to guess what was in each and every package--whether it was for one of them or not. This was about the time Kathy would be trying to push everyone out of the living room, trying to get them all ready to go to Mass.

You always had to go early. The one day of the year when every Catholic showed up at church, and you had to be ready. Years of waiting with four wired, sleepy kids on a hard wooden pew for two hours before the service started had become a tradition all its own for them. It didn't seem to change as the kids grew up. They were still as excited as ever--even Kathleen, who'd been making sounds about leaving the Church for a couple of years now. Not that Elliot listened to her. Maureen had made the same noises at her age, and she still showed up, squirming in her seat like a ten-year-old.

Christmas Eve was the real gift for Elliot. It was the night when he got to spend time with his kids, just being Dad for a while. Not Detective Stabler, not the guy who dealt with the sickest criminals out there. Just Dad....

Elliot looked over at the bag on the edge of his desk. Maureen was getting harder and harder to shop for these days. He'd have to start giving her money soon because he was just running out of ideas. But that was what a girl--a young woman--her age wanted, anyway, wasn't it? She was getting too old for presents from Santa.

Which didn't mean he could take the iPod back to where it came from.

Dickie's present was at the house, hidden in the attic, along with Kathleen's and Lizzie's. He'd gone overboard this year, spent way more than he should on a cop's salary. But this year everything was different, right? This year, he wasn't going to wake up in the morning and roll over and kiss Kathy Merry Christmas and stumble downstairs to see the kids all sitting as close to the tree as they could, waiting for the moment when Dad took his seat in that huge recliner and gave them tacit permission to have at it.

No, this year was definitely different. And that difference was one of the reasons he was sitting at his desk at the precinct, finishing up paperwork that could surely wait until Monday. Kathy knew, too. She'd let him mumble through his lie and told him softly that they'd save him a seat at the church. If he could make it.

And he wanted to. He wanted to go and sit next to her and whisper snide comments in her ear while the priest gave his homily. That was what Midnight Mass was for, after all. Sharing the in-jokes. But when your whole life was a joke, what was the point, right?

Munch's cynical laugh lashed out at him from the loft above, and he spent the energy to wonder what was so funny. For all his protests about Christmas as the "great consumer holiday," John wasn't above a little eggnog and gingerbread.

Nobody asked Elliot why he hadn't joined in the celebration. Nobody had to. Once Olivia knew about Kathy and the kids, so did everybody else. And he wanted to be mad about that, but there wasn't much point. And given that the rest of the guys had all been there before, he wasn't getting nearly the number of pitying looks he'd expected.

The party upstairs sounded like it was winding down. But it would be, wouldn't it? After all Cragen and Olivia would both be heading to their own church services soon, and Munch'd find something to do with his time--probably set himself up for Chinese food and a movie tomorrow, traditional Jewish Christmas fare. Fin had said something about making it an early night, but Elliot had the idea that he'd be out for hours yet, unconsciously running away from the family he didn't have.

Elliot wondered cynically when he'd start doing the same thing.

This was stupid. He should really just wrap up the file he was working on and get the hell over to St. Charles. The clock had somehow passed 9:30 now, and Kathy and the kids would be heading out.

From her mother's house.

He'd asked her to come back and stay at the house tonight. "Come on, Kathy," he'd almost begged. "At least do it for the kids." It was a refrain he'd heard so many times in his line of work that he almost choked on the words. And she'd heard him tell enough stories to stand her ground. "They're not babies, Elliot. They know things have changed. You want it for *you*, not them."

She was right, of course. Usually was. He didn't want to leave them at the church steps and go home alone and wake up in the morning to hours of waiting for her to drop them off for their "second Christmas," something half the kids in Dickie's class already had to go through. And something Dickie was resenting the hell out of his father for making him endure.

Which was yet another reason why he was still sitting here, as the clock ticked over to 9:45. Tonight's mass wasn't going to be special--not in any positive way at any rate.

"Hey, Elliot? I thought you left."

His partner walked toward him, the "worried" look in her eyes. It was always there these days. Unless she had the "pissed off" look, which was pretty frequent, too. "Don't bring your problems at home onto the job, Elliot," was something he was hearing more and more.

But tonight, on Christmas Eve, it was the "worried" look. And he just couldn't deal with it. He'd hit the bar down the street, hang out until after Mass, and hopefully stumble enough on his way home that he could fall into bed without thinking about what he was missing. He grabbed the bag at the edge of his desk and shoved his chair back, rising and heading for his coat.

"I was just finishing up a few things," he announced abruptly. He had to get out of here. It was just too damn bad he had nowhere to go.

He was about to make as graceful an exit as he could hope for, when a quiet voice with a smile in it stopped him cold. "Good, because I hate being late."

"Kathy?" he whispered.

He turned toward her voice and found his wife, the hem of her long black velvet dress peeking out from beneath her winter coat. Behind her stood Maureen and Kathleen, looking every bit the beautiful young women that they were. The twins completed the scene, Dickie with a big grin on his face for pulling one over on Dad.

Elliot caught sight of the smile on Olivia's face and turned to her, trying to fight off a smile of his own. "Did you know about this?"

She grinned knowingly, heading back upstairs now that Kathy had arrived. "Go to church, Elliot," she called, her voice echoing as she left. "That's what Christmas Eve is for."

Elliot looked back at his wife and kids and decided that, no matter what was happening in their day to day life, no matter what problems they might have... There was still love in Kathy's eyes...

And tonight, on Christmas Eve, that was enough.

 


End file.
